


Avlon

by JeanGraham



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 08:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20423096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanGraham/pseuds/JeanGraham
Summary: The Enterprise transports a convicted assassin to a Federation prison colony.





	Avlon

See all of my fanfic and links to my pro fiction at <http://jeangraham.20m.com.>

AVLON by Jean Graham

The turbolift doors whispered open, and Devra Lang headed   
confidently toward the Enterprise sickbay. She pretended to   
ignore the grinning young crewmen who, having shared the lift   
with her, had disembarked on the same deck and now walked slowly   
several paces behind her with their heads bent together. She   
didn't have to hear them to know what they were probably saying.

"I hear Dr. McCoy's pretty smitten with his new MD."

"Yeah, well you don't see lady ship's doctors all that often, do   
you?

They turned into a different corridor, and Devra breathed an   
invisible sigh of relief. She was used to the looks, the asides   
and the quiet whispers. What amazed her at times was that in   
this day and age, men could still be surprised (as well as   
embarrassed) by the installment of a female doctor aboard ship.

She strode into the medical section's front office to find McCoy   
at his desk, hip deep in reports and obviously hating it.

"You're late," he muttered without looking up.

"Sorry. Is there some crisis I should know about?"

The Enterprise's chief surgeon scowled at the piles of log tapes   
surrounding him. "No, but the captain wants someone from medical   
section there to meet the penal colony shuttle when it docks.   
That's in ten minutes."

"I'm on my way. Uh... Am I allowed to know who it is we're   
picking up?"

"Starfleet-ordered prisoner transfer to Starbase 20." McCoy's   
stylus continued to move over the chart in front of him as he   
spoke. "He's a Lyrellian accused of assassinating a Dorgon   
Chancellor. The Federation wants full psych tests run on him   
before the trial opens next week."

Devra wanted to ask why the penal colony's medical facilities   
hadn't been adequate for that, but refrained. There was no   
second-guessing a bureaucratic Federation decision.

She was on her way out the door when McCoy's voice stopped her.   
"Oh and Devra..." he said.

"Yes?"

"Be careful." He was looking at her fully now for the first time.   
"This character's supposed to be dangerous."

Devra smiled. "I never met a man I couldn't handle, Doctor."   
"You never met this one. Just watch yourself, all right?"

"I'll do my best." Devra headed for the landing bay, uncertain   
whether McCoy's concern had been professional, personal or both.   
She was fond of the irrascible ship's surgeon; maybe even a   
little more than fond. But his abrasive veneer was so difficult   
to get past. It never seemed to disappear completely, even with   
his closest friends. She wondered what unhappy events in his   
past might have fostered it to begin with, and why he felt he   
needed to so carefully maintain the facade.

Captain Kirk, Lt. Sulu and four security officers were gathered   
outside the bay doors when she arrived. The overhead panels   
indicated that the shuttle had already docked and the bay was now   
pressurizing. She was just in time.

"Glad you could join us, Doctor," the captain said pleasantly,   
though the intimation that she had nearly been late lingered   
somewhere in the words.

"Thank you, sir. Will you want the medicals conducted   
immediately, or after we're underway?"

Kirk turned to his helmsman. "Mr. Sulu, what's our ETA for   
Starbase 20 at warp four?"

"Thirty-two hours, Captain."

"Then I'll want the tests run immediately, Doctor."

Kirk watched the pressurizing line crawl toward the green side of   
the indicator. "And I've just received a report from the   
colony's chief psychologist that should interest you. I guess   
you could call it a warning."

"Sir, I've already been told the man is considered dangerous.   
What else is there to know?"

"The reason why." Kirk delayed opening the bay doors just yet,   
even though the pressurization was now complete. "This man,   
Avlon, is a member of a Lyrellian cult known as the Bachni. Ever   
hear of it?"

"Mm. Supposedly extinct," Devra told him. "Aren't they supposed   
to be psychic sorcerers, or something like that?"

"Starfleet believes this particular 'psychic sorcerer' used   
some sinister variant of a mind meld technique to murder the   
Chancellor. So just as a precaution, Doctor, take them at their   
word. Don't let him touch you."

Devra suppressed a shudder as the door hummed open and they   
were met with the sleek configuration of the colony shuttle. Its   
hatch had already opened, and a trio of armed guards had   
disembarked. They were shortly followed by a fourth, whose drawn   
phaser herded the handcuffed prisoner from the craft.

The man was not what Devra had expected. He could have been a   
Federation ambassador, or a doctor... even a starship captain,   
for all his demeanor betrayed his alleged nature. His dark eyes   
sparkled with an unmistakable intellect; well-chisled features   
offset a lithe, muscular form.

Devra never heard the official exchange of formalities between   
respective security forces. Her gaze had locked with Avlon's,   
and those eyes seemed at once to engulf her. The spell was only   
broken when Captain Kirk's voice interceded.

"Doctor?"

Devra blinked. "Yes sir."

"Give us a preliminary medi-scanner reading?"

While Devra fumbled for the scanner clipped to her belt, Avlon   
flashed Kirk a peculiar half-grin. "Trying to prove that I'm   
living, Captain? Or perhaps, that I'm not some malevolent alien   
entity disguised as a Lyrellian?"

Kirk ignored the remark, intent on Devra's whirring scanner.   
"Well?" he asked, a bit impatiently.

Devra snapped the small device off. "All his readings are   
normal," she reported.

The captain nodded. "Mr. Sulu," he said.

"Yes sir?"

"You'll take charge of the security detail. See that the   
prisoner is delivered to medical section. And I want two   
securities to remain in the sickbay throughout the examination   
procedure."

Devra started to protest that, but Kirk raised a hand to   
forestall her. "That's an order," he said firmly.

"Rogers, Guillardo, you two stay with them. And see the prisoner   
safely to the brig afterward."

The securities chorused a "yes sir," and Kirk turned away to see   
to the departure of the colony shuttle and her crew. Clearly   
dismissed, the escort party surrounded Avlon and headed for   
sickbay.

Devra walked a few feet to the left of him. Uncomfortably aware   
that he seemed always to be watching her, even when his eyes were   
elsewhere, she was also plagued with an uncanny feeling that   
someone -- or something -- else was following them.

She spun to look back at the deserted corridor, stopping the   
armed party in its tracks. "Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Sulu glanced nervously around them. "There's no one   
else here."

"No one at all," Avlon added smugly. "Tell me, Doctor, are you   
given to auditory hallucinations?"

Sulu glared at Avlon on Devra's behalf. "Shut up," he ordered.

Devra shrugged off the sensation and resolutely began walking   
again. They crowded into the turbolift and were promptly   
redeposited on the medical deck.

All the way to sickbay, Devra never lost the eerie feeling that   
something else, something unseen, had been stalking their party.

Two of the security guards deparated, dismissed by Sulu, before   
they entered McCoy's outer office. The chief surgeon, all the   
same, greeted them with a jaundiced glance that clearly said the   
remaining securities were unwelcome.

"This is a sickbay," he growled at Sulu. "Not a brig. We don't   
need any armed nursemaids."

Sulu's grin said he was long-accustomed to the doctor's bite.   
"You'll have to take that up with the captain," he said.

As the helmsman departed, McCoy called after him through the   
closing door. "I'll do that!"

When the door had finished closing, he turned to Devra and said   
instead, "Let's get started."

Avlon lifted his cuffed hands toward them. "Won't a physical   
examination be a bit difficult with these on?"

Not a bit," McCoy shot back immediately. "We weren't planning to   
examine your wrists. In here."

They trooped into the ward, past McCoy's glass wall cabinet with   
its prized collection of Saurian Brandy bottles, and Devra moved   
at once to prepare the psych-reading equipment for the battery of   
tests. Rogers and Guillardo silently took up guard stance   
against a nearby wall and watched, impassive but doubtless   
prepared for any emergency.

McCoy guided an acquiescent Avlon onto the upright diagnostic   
couch, which then tilted him backward. Devra had just made an   
adjustment on the adjacent equipment when the "something" she had   
sensed earlier returned, this time more strongly than before.   
There was a sound: an odd sort of humming, faint, almost an echo.

"Dr. McCoy..."

Devra had started to ask if McCoy had noticed the odd noise, but   
when she turned, it was to confront the bizarre sight of security   
officers Rogers and Guillardo standing side by side against the   
bulkhead, both sleeping soundly. She turned again, and saw that   
McCoy had collapsed into a nearby chair and was also dozing   
comfortably.

The humming grew louder. It filled Devra's ears and seemed to   
crawl with clutching fingers into her mind.

_No_, she heard Avelon's voice say, though he hadn't spoken.   
_Not this one. We will need her._

Devra felt a hand on her shoulder. Slowly and firmly, it turned   
her to face Avlon, whose dark eyes again burned into her,   
shutting out all else, or trying to.

Devra dimly remembered Kirk's earlier warning. _A variant of mind _  
_melding,_ he'd said. But more importantly, _don't let him touch _  
_you._

The hand on her shoulder moved. Hands, she realized foggily. He   
was still manacled: but two hands had caught her, turned her.

The fingers, deceptively gentle, touched her forehead and began   
to delicately probe. Devra heard the same voice, non-verbally,   
that she had heard a few moments ago. But now the words were   
strange, alien.

_Bachni, jazhan,_ it intoned. _Isfeth kashnandi, Bachni _  
_Asboreth..._

Terrified, but with the strength of resolve, Devra stumbled   
backward and away from him. The link broken, both voice and   
humming vanished. The look of surprise in his black eyes told   
her he had not expected the reaction.

"Such strength of will," he said. "It seems the Terran axiom is   
true after all. Appearances are indeed deceiving."

Devra glanced with concern at McCoy and the slumbering   
securities. "What did you do to them?" she asked.

"Do? Why nothing. They're merely enjoying what you commonly   
call 'pleasant dreams.'"

"But you didn't touch them. I saw..."

He smiled the way a lion might smile at a newfound herd of plump   
zebra. "I didn't have to," he said. "My... accomplice,   
Asboreth, has touched them for me. You heard him, sensed him, in   
the corridor. Oh, you didn't imagine it. He was there. And   
here."

Devra's furtive glance around the room still showed her nothing.   
But Avlon's smile broadened at her effort.

"Here," he said. His chained hands rose, fingers creating a   
flower shape. His lips moved, silently forming more alien words,   
and Devra watched, captivated as an eerie blue light began to   
glow within the bowl of his hands. It pulsated and hummed with   
the same near-musical tones she'd heard before. There were words   
within the intonations: the same whispered syllables that moved   
on Avlon's lips. The blue glow spread itself to his handcuffs;   
its murmuring increased as the metal bracelets grew white hot and   
dissolved from his wrists without leaving any marks behind. The   
glowing thing crawled up his arm then to settle, like some arcane   
bird, on his shoulder.

"Now," he said. "The Bachni will express to this Federation the   
true scope of our power." His black eyes focused on Devra again,   
boring into her. "You will take us to the control room of this   
vessel. To the bridge."

Devra tried to back away. "No."

Fire seared through her head, a merciless, blinding pain that   
receded only when she cried out, begging for him to stop.

"You will take us," he said. "Now."

The light creature performed a hideous imitation of a chortle.   
"lzzfethhh," it rasped, and the shape quivered on Avlon's   
shoulder. Devra could see a figure now within the blue halo; a   
small, web-fingered creature with reptilian eyes and perfect   
rows of needle teeth. She had no time to inspect it further,   
however. Her feet were unwillingly guiding her past McCoy's   
unmoving form to the sickbay door. She was only marginally aware   
of a sound from the chief surgeon's chair as they passed him;   
when she turned it was to see McCoy on his feet, lunging toward   
Avlon with outstretched arms.

Devra tried to shout, to warn McCoy away, but her voice caught in   
her throat. She saw the light creature fly at McCoy, a flurry of   
glowing rage. It struck at him, madly babbling its evil words.   
McCoy cried out, fell.

Avlon smiled.

"Stop it!" Devra pleaded. "He did nothing to hurt you. Please,   
stop it!"

Asboreth flew at McCoy again, dealing a blow that knocked him to   
the deck.

  
"Incarceration has obviously dulled my senses," Avlon told her.   
"He broke free only because I shifted concentration to your   
punishment. He will not break free again."

"If you had this ability all along," Devra said as Asboreth   
hovered over McCoy, "why didn't you use it to escape long ago?"

"I told you. The power of the Bachni must be demonstrated to   
this Federation. The time was not right before. Now, with a   
starship at our disposal, the time will be very right indeed.   
Asboreth! Bezhengi!"

Devra needed no translation of the command. The light creature   
descended on McCoy, cackling its hideous, whispered laugh, and   
spread itself into a thin veil of searing blue light.

McCoy screamed.

"No!" Devra rushed at Avlon, only to find herself thrown back   
against a bulkhead by the same agonizing pain that had assaulted   
her earlier. It passed as quickly as before, but McCoy continued   
to writhe on the floor, engulfed in blue fire.

Avlon went on smiling.

His head snapped up at the sound of the intercom whistle. From   
the speaker, Spock's voice said crisply, "Bridge to medical   
section. The Captain requests a report on the progress of your   
psychological examinations... Dr. McCoy?"

Devra's eyes fell on the phaser secured to Security guard Rogers'   
utility belt. She knew there would be no other opportunity. She   
would have to act now, while the Lyrellian's attention was   
distracted by the intercom.

"Dr. McCoy," Spock's voice repeated. "Please acknowledge."

Devra ran the few intervening steps, snatched the weapon up and   
spun to fire it, never stopping to breathe or think. She had no   
idea what setting it was on.

A crimson beam streaked toward Avlon and struck him full in the   
chest. His agonized cry was twinned by Asboreth's -- and   
McCoy's. As Avlon fell, the light creature changed its hue from   
blue to violet, gathered itself into a raging swarm and flew at   
Devra. Her hands went up in a useless defense. The phaser   
clattered to her feet. Fire both searing and at the same time   
incredibly cold began to consume her. The scream struggling to   
escape threatened instead to choke her.

The creature's hoarse voice screamed in place of her own, and she   
saw, as it saw, a thousand faces of the Bachni, reaching across a   
galaxy for the soul of the dying one.

_The last,_ they wailed. _You are the last of us!_

The violet light engulfing her faded back to blue, the pain   
decreasing. From the floor, Avlon's dark eyes seemed to smile at   
her before the life crept out of them, and he lay staring emptily   
at the ceiling.

Asboreth's blue glow flickered, trembled, and with a final,   
anguished sob, dissipated altogether.

Devra dropped to the deck, fighting to catch her breath. She   
heard the sickbay door come open, and anxious voices: Chekov's,   
Chapel's, then Captain Kirk's.

Gentle hands grasped her shoulders, pulled her up.

"Doctor? Doctor, are you all right?"

Devra blinked, finally focusing on Christine Chapel's face.   
Beyond her, Kirk was seeing to a recovering McCoy, Chekov to the   
still-sleeping securities.

"Avlon..." Devra murmured.

"He can't hurt you," Chapel said. "The phaser was on welding   
mode. Doesn't dematerialize, but kills just as efficiently."

Devra stared down at the motionless Avlon, a dark, ugly hole   
burned neatly through the fabric of his tunic. Though a part of   
her felt only relief, another portion had the very unprofessional   
urge to cry.

McCoy's acid tones cut through her morbid reverie. "Damn it,   
stop fussing over me. I'm all right!"

Rogers and Guillardo were reviving under Chekov's ministrations,   
and were making similar protests.

The intercom whistled. Devra heard Kirk answer and begin giving   
Spock a status report. In a moment, McCoy was beside her, a   
medi-scanner whirring in his hand. Devra scarcely felt his   
concerned touch. She fought back threatening tears born of both   
relief and sorrow. Over Avlon's still form, she thought she saw   
the faintest glimmer of a sinister blue glow.

McCoy's arm encircled her, led her away.

When she looked back, the glow was gone.   


The End


End file.
